A Family Church on Olio Road
Trinity Church meets on a single campus in Fishers, Indiana, just north of Indianapolis, with a second congregation across the city at the Garfield Park Ministry Center. The tagline that opens everything the church puts out is short and steady: "As It Is In Heaven." Members of the staff describe Trinity as a church that "feels like family," a place where people are fully known, deeply loved, and "empowered to grow and multiply." Sunday worship services run at 9:00 and 11:00 AM at 11721 Olio Road in Fishers, and a Spanish translation is offered at both services. Between services, the building is set aside as a family time, so parents with children moving in and out of programming have a chance to connect.
The church's stated vision is to see "Indianapolis as it is in heaven," and that vision is given shape by two words the staff use often: family church and sending church. Trinity aims to be a multi-generational congregation where wisdom and wonder walk side by side, a community that reflects its neighborhood rather than simply fills a building, and a hub that raises up leaders and launches new churches. Staff leaders talk about a goal of sending out 1,000 leaders into Kingdom work and of planting 10 new churches throughout the Indianapolis metro area.
What Sunday Morning Is Like
Lead Pastor Mike Colaw, who has shaped the vision, teaching, and overall direction of Trinity for over twelve years, preaches most weeks from the main stage in Fishers. Services are built around live preaching the staff describes as speaking "to the moment, not just a screen," alongside congregational worship led by a team of musicians and vocalists. Parents are welcome to keep their children with them in the worship service if they prefer, and families are invited to use the time between the 9:00 and 11:00 AM gatherings to reconnect. The dress code is whatever a guest feels comfortable in; nothing in the church's materials suggests a formal standard.
For those who cannot attend in person, services are livestreamed online through Trinity's online church platform and the church's YouTube channel, and the full message library is available online as well.
Trinity Kids, Birth Through Fourth Grade
Trinity Kids is offered during both Sunday services for children from birth through fourth grade. The ministry's tagline is "Made For More," and the rooms are built around three voices of influence in a child's life that the staff calls "The 3": parents, mentors, and prayer warriors.
To support parents, the church has developed a written plan called the Trinity Family Blueprint, which identifies eight key moments in the development of a child from birth to high school graduation and walks through how to be a child's "spiritual hero" at every stage. A separate, stand-alone ministry called the Family Advocacy Ministry (FAM) surrounds foster and adoptive families with practical help, including weekly meals, childcare, and prayer through partner organizations Josiah White's and Hands of Hope.
TSM 58 and Trinity Student Ministry
Students in fifth through eighth grade have their own gathering called TSM 58, which meets upstairs in the student center during the 11:00 AM service. It is built to be a discussion-based space where preteens can build friendships and grow in their faith as they prepare to join the main worship service in ninth grade. Once a month, TSM 58 also hosts a First Friday night from 6:00 to 8:00 PM, a more relaxed event where students can invite friends and simply hang out together.
Older students in seventh through twelfth grade are part of Trinity Student Ministry (TSM). TSM meets on its own on Sunday evenings from 6:00 to 7:30 PM in the student center. The evening is structured around games, a time of worship, a teaching message, and small group discussion around life and spiritual topics. The student ministry also runs a young adult ministry called Awaken, which is shepherded by the discipleship team.
Groups That Fit Around Real Life
Trinity's small group ministry uses what the church calls a "free market" approach. Rather than running a fixed menu of groups, Trinity encourages leaders to start groups around the things they already enjoy, and then sorts those groups into eight hubs: Men, Women, Marriage and Family, Discipleship, Freedom and Recovery, and Outreach and Prayer, among others. The idea is that the things already making up a person's week - a hobby, a stage of life, a shared recovery journey - can become the substance of a group. Discipleship Pastor AJ Wilk oversees the network, helps people explore leadership, and shepherds Awaken, the young adult ministry.
Wellsprings and the Prayer Ministry
Wellsprings is Trinity's prayer ministry, focused on inner healing and spiritual warfare prayer. The ministry is built around three-hour "freedom sessions" facilitated by trained volunteer teams. The sessions are designed to help people walk through wounds like abandonment, betrayal, mistrust, and rejection, and to identify the lies they have believed in place of what the Holy Spirit says is true. Anyone can begin by attending an Explore Wellsprings session, and from there a freedom session can be scheduled.
Latino Ministries and the Mizo Congregation
Trinity serves two distinct language communities in addition to its English-speaking congregation. Latino Ministries, led by Pastor Jorge Escalante, provides spiritual guidance, relational care, and culturally attentive support for Spanish-speaking members and attenders; the Spanish translation offered at the main Sunday services is one part of that ministry. At the Garfield Park Ministry Center in downtown Indianapolis, Pastor Khamh Tin Uk shepherds the Mizo congregation, fostering spiritual growth and discipleship among Mizo believers in the city. Together, these ministries make Trinity a multi-cultural church, not just a multi-generational one.
The Garfield Park Ministry Center
The Garfield Park Ministry Center is Trinity's urban expression, located in downtown Indianapolis and overseen by Care Pastor Mike Schultz. The center hosts a Thursday night gathering with a meal, and the residency program places an intern on site each year to serve alongside the community there. The vision for Garfield Park is to "empower the overlooked, lost, and underserved in our city," share the gospel, and provide essential resources to those in the neighborhood, while also discipling new believers. Trinity's senior adult pastor, Mike Summers, also extends the church's reach by leading worship communities at three local senior living centers: Wyndmore, Allisonville Meadows, and Northridge Gracious Retirement Living.
What Trinity Believes
Trinity Church is a congregation of The Wesleyan Church and submits to its Articles of Religion, while affirming the historic Christian creeds. The Apostles' Creed is recited as the unifying creedal statement of the church, and the congregation has published the full text of the creed in its own materials. The Bible is taught as the trustworthy and inspired Word of God and the church's foundational authority, and the global, historical Church is described as the way God is restoring the world and building His forever family today.
Distinctives, as the staff distinguishes them, are convictions held with sincerity and humility. Trinity emphasizes that a healthy local church needs accountability beyond itself, and the Wesleyan Church provides that accountability for everything from finances to pastoral doctrine. The church has also published position papers on the pursuit of sobriety and on involvement in politics as part of how it lives out those distinctives in the open.
The Residency and Leadership Pipeline
One of the clearest expressions of Trinity's sending vision is its one-year Residency program, designed for recent college graduates and young adults who sense a call to ministry. Residents serve 25 hours per week, receive a $1,000 monthly stipend, and are placed in one of several ministry areas: Early Education, Communications, Missions, Urban Ministry, Trinity Kids, Students, Young Adults (Awaken), Tech, Worship, Congregational Care, Executive Pastor, or Teaching. Each area pairs the resident with a staff mentor and gives them a real ministry workload. Local and global ministry partners for the residency and the wider church include Cru, Shunem House, Lithuania, Czech, Turkey, Dearborn, Destiny Rescue, and Nicaragua Resource Network.
Visiting Trinity and Getting Connected
Newcomers are invited to simply show up on a Sunday morning at either the 9:00 or 11:00 AM service at 11721 Olio Road in Fishers. The visit page notes that whether someone has been in church their whole life or is just exploring, they are invited to come and see what God might have for them. From there, the Trinity Growth Track lays out four simple next steps: attend Trinity weekly, attend a Discover Trinity class, join a group, and attend Sent gatherings.
Discover Trinity is a two-week class offered roughly every other month that walks through the church's mission, values, spiritual gifts, and ways to get involved. The baptism process is open to anyone who would like to take that step, and giving is available online through the Church Center app or by mail to the church office at 9709 Allisonville Road, Indianapolis, IN 46250. The staff can also help arrange stock donations for those interested in tax-efficient giving.
For more information, the office can be contacted at (317) 849-9576 or by email at office@encountertrinity.com.